Inferno (1980)

'Inferno' is the kind of movie - like Gilliams 'Brazil' - where a few of us will leave the theater enriched by the experience, but there's also the sour-faced crowd dismissing it as the worst crap ever.

I came upon Argento's movies just recently, looking for good horror films. Now I've enjoyed Suspiria, Tenebre and Inferno. At first his original style came as a shock. I can understand those that, accustomed to hollywoodian narrative, find his movies to be full of faults. I wouldn't even recommend them if you're looking for 'ordinary', mainstream horror.

'Suspiria' reminded me of the 1933 'Vampyr' by danish director Carl Dreyer. 'Inferno' has echoes of German director Fritz Lang, for instance his 1933 The 'Testament of Doctor Mabuse'. Much of the Argento way of doing things has a silent movie era feel to it. The acting is visually exaggerated, and the dialogue is often wooden - the awful dubbing of english voices in the versions I saw added to this effect.

Argento makes different choices. The music, for instance, is not adding atmosphere as a soundtrack - it is a full frontal assault, meant to be noticed and impossible to ignore. The cinematic choices of camera angles, lightning and so on are stylish and unique in their unrelenting artistic ambition. I can't even begin to describe the style. Even if I mentioned Dreyer and Lang, Argento is more expressionist than impressionist, but for lack of good words I'll shut my mouth about this subject.

I have to defend Argento against the claims that 'Inferno' has an incoherent plot. It simply doesn't - the story is fairly straight and linear. The evil depicted is not rational, and we are often left in the dark as to the acts and motives of the evil forces. But this is part of the horror and suspense. I won't go into more details about the plot, as there are many excellent user comments here, and this is not really a review, just some comments.

Some parts of 'Inferno' are pure beauty - exact scenes, feeling more like a storyboard coming to life in the imagination than as a real movie. The design of the house of the second Mother is fascinating - modern and medieval at the same time.

Finally, some individual scenes are truly scaring, which is rare in horror movies - especially the underwater scene.